


The Love Song of Mycroft Holmes

by Anarfea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Love Poems, M/M, Remix, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6786415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Mycroft-centric reinterpretation of TS Eliot's Poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrok."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Song of Mycroft Holmes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beyonces_fiancee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyonces_fiancee/gifts).



> This poem is a remix of “[The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/44212)” by T. S. Elliot. I strongly recommend you read the original first.  
>   
> I also recommend you read “[Nocturno de Los Ángeles](http://jstheater.blogspot.com/2013/01/poemtranslation-xavier-villaurrutia.html)” by Xavier Villaurrutia. The second stanza of this poem is quoted at the top of this one.  
>   
> I’m linking you to both poems because I’m not a pretentious ass like Eliot who expects you to already be familiar with the quoted sources (okay, I’m remixing Prufrock, so clearly I _am_ a pretentious ass, but I’m not _that_ much of a pretentious ass).
> 
> I dedicate this to my trustworthy beta, beyonces_fiancee, who has been an invaluable source of writing support.

_Si cada uno dijera en un momento dado,_

_en sólo una palabra, lo que piensa,_

_las cinco letras del DESEO formarían una enorme_

_cicatriz luminosa,_

_una constelación más antigua, más viva aún que las otras._

_Y esa constelación sería como un ardiente sexo_

_en el profundo cuerpo de la noche,_

_o, mejor, como los Gemelos que por vez primera en la vida_

_se miraran de frente, a los ojos, y se abrazaran_

_ya para siempre._

 

Let us go then, brother mine,

Through this city spread beneath my watchful eye

Like a junkie comatose upon a mattress;

Let us go, through certain well-surveilled streets,

The bolt-holes and retreats,

The filthy sheets of one-night cheap hotels,

Doss-houses, hospitals and police cells,

Streets that wind like the tedious arguments

Which, no matter my intent

End always in that ever-dreaded question …

I need not ask, “Where is the list?”

I see it crumpled in your fist.

 

At Vauxhall Cross, they whisper, voices fraught:

Gunpowder, treason, and terrorist plots.

 

The cigarette smoke that spirals upwards from your fingertips,

The cigarette smoke that curls and streams between your parted lips,

Licks its tongue around the cavern of your mouth.

“Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us?”

You whisper, as the snow falls on the window-panes.

“All lives end. All hearts are broken.”

“This is low tar,” you whinge to the indifferent, Christmas night.

“You barely knew her.” More remains unspoken.

 

I only wish that there were time

For words that turn to smoke on parted lips,

Whispers as snow falls on window-panes.

There’s no such time. There’s only time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet.

I’ll find the time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That filch and hide an ashtray in your sheet.

But no time for you, no time for me,

No time nor place for taboo indiscretions,

No allowances for disallowed transgressions.

I shall be mother, now, and pour the tea.

 

At Vauxhall Cross, they whisper, voices fraught:

Gunpowder, treason, and terrorist plots.

 

And yet still I find the time

To wonder, “If I dared,” “What if I dared?”

To turn back and re-ascend your stairs,

To stand before you, perched upon your chair.

You know you wound and yet cannot refrain,

Although my suit’s bespoke, my weight maintained,

My waistcoat rich and modest, but asserted by a simple chain--

Still you say: “But how you have grown fat again!”

I do not dare

Defy the universe.

There is no place; there is no time

For transgressions, indiscretions which I know to be perverse.

 

I know and yet have never known you, not at all.

In my mind, I’ve held you, soothed you in distress;

I’ve kissed your lips, and tasted their caress;

I have knelt before your feet and been your thrall;

But the sins within my heart I’ll not confess.

          So how can I transgress?

 

I know your eyes, yet know them not at all.

Your eyes deduce, seduce me, lay my secrets bare.

Transfix me, fix me, spear me on a pin.

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall

And you look on, chagrined;

When I am flayed beneath your knowing stare,

          Then how can I transgress?

 

I know your arms, yet know them not at all.

Arms braceleted with rings of green and black

(Bruised by handcuffs, scarred with needle tracks).

Is it paper in your fist

That makes my insides twist?

A list with what you’ve taken on it scrawled?

          So how can I transgress?

          When I am your linchpin?

 

Shall I confess, I have leaned back, put up my feet,

And watched you being beaten with a pipe,

My lips white, trousers tight, while you leaned in your fetters?

 

I am a fiend with lantern eyes and slavering jaws

Luring you into the inky deep.

 

I pretend you are not dead, but sleeping peacefully,

I grasp your fingers;

I am outwardly calm, but I malinger.

I count your breaths, monitor your heartbeat.

Still I, even with the doctors’ promise,

Know I almost lost you, and can take no solace.

Inside, I’ve wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

You think I am all-seeing (knowing, even) yet even I was sightless.

I’m not a prophet--did not foresee this crisis.

I saw the moment of my greatness flicker,

I saw the eternal Footman hold your coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

 

I wish you had discerned my preference.

The Christmas lunch, the cigarettes, the punch

(“Here be Dragons” should have instilled a hunch).

Would it have made a difference?

Would you have made the proper inference

If I squeezed our childhood into a nutshell,

Rolled a cigarette into a question?

You are Lazarus, raised by my own art;

If I can’t protect you, you will be my Icarus.

“Also, your loss would break my heart.”

          You choke. “What the hell am I

          Supposed to say to that?”

 

If I’d disclosed my preference,

Would you have shown deference?

After I say, “You may consider him under my protection.”

After you (sneering, leering) say, “I consider you under his thumb.”

You twist; my wrist is numb.

“Brother mine, don’t appall me when I’m high.”

I wince and grasp the doorjamb, blink the searing pain back from my eyes.

Would it have made a difference?

If I’d confessed to you my preference,

Would you now, choking on your cigarette, exclaim:

          “What the hell am I

          Supposed to say to that?”

 

No! I am not King Oedipus, nor will I be;

I’m but a humble civil servant, a mere

Clearinghouse of information, I hear

That I am quite the multi-purpose tool,

Which pleases me. I’m glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous.

You think me supercilious, perhaps obtuse;

At times, to you, I seem ridiculous--

Almost, at times, the Fool.

 

I get through …. I make do ….

I’m living in a world of goldfish, save for you.

 

You ask to say goodbye, as we stand beneath the plane.

I overhear you tell him, “Sherlock’s actually a girl’s name.”

I know these words and “I love you” mean the same.

 

I know you’ll never speak that way to me.

 

I have seen you flying on the Dragon’s back

Riding the East Wind, burning all in your path.

Leaving me to clear away the aftermath.

Your sword, a needle, flashes in the sky;

The plans I’ve laid for you have gone awry.

Know if the Dragon slays you, then I die.


End file.
